European Parliament election, 2009 (United Kingdom)

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United Kingdom European Parliament election, 2009
← 2004 4 June 2009 2014 →
All 72 of the United Kingdom's seats
in the European Parliament
Turnout 34.7%[1]
  First party Second party
  David Cameron Nigel Farage
Leader David Cameron Nigel Farage
Party Conservative UKIP
Alliance ECR EFD
Leader since 6 December 2005 12 September 2006
Last election 27 seats 12 seats
Seats won 26
(including 1 UCUNF)		 13
Seat change Increase1* Increase1*
Popular vote 4,198,394 2,498,226
Percentage 27.7% 16.5%
Swing Increase1.0% Increase0.3%
  Third party Fourth party
  Gordon Brown Nick Clegg
Leader Gordon Brown Nick Clegg
Party Labour Liberal Democrat
Alliance S&D ALDE
Leader since 24 June 2007 18 December 2007
Last election 19 seats 12 seats
Seats won 13 11
Seat change Decrease5* Increase1*
Popular vote 2,381,760 2,080,613
Percentage 15.7% 13.7%
Swing Decrease6.9% Decrease1.2%
2009 Euro ElectionMap.png
Colours indicate winning party. *Seat change has been adjusted to allow for direct comparison with the results from the 2004 election.[2]
Leader of largest party before election

David Cameron
Conservative

 Subsequent leader of largest party

David Cameron
Conservative

The European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's component of the 2009 European Parliament election, the voting for which was held on Thursday 4 June 2009. The election was held concurrently with the 2009 local elections in England. In total, 72 Members of the European Parliament were elected from the United Kingdom using proportional representation.

Notable outcomes were the significant drop in support for the Labour Party, who came third, and the UK Independence Party (UKIP) finishing second in a major election for the first time in its history, coming level with Labour in terms of seats but ahead of them in terms of votes. This was the first time in British electoral history that a party in government had been outpolled in a national election by a party with no representation in the House of Commons. The BNP also won two seats, its first ever in a nationwide election.[3] It also marked the first time the Scottish National Party (SNP) won the largest share of the European election vote in Scotland,[4] and it was the first time since 1918 Labour had failed to come first in a Welsh election.[5] It was the Democratic Unionist Party's (DUP) worst ever European election result, and also the first time an Irish Republican party, Sinn Féin, topped the poll in Northern Ireland.[6]

Background

Electoral system

The United Kingdom elected 72 Members of the European Parliament using proportional representation. The United Kingdom was divided into twelve multi-member constituencies. The eleven of these regions which form Great Britain used a closed-list party list system method of proportional representation, calculated using the D'Hondt method. Northern Ireland used the Single Transferable Vote (STV).

The experimental use of all-postal ballots in four regions in 2004 was not repeated, resulting in a sharp reduction in turnout in those regions.[7]

Constituencies and representation

As has been the case since 1999, the electoral constituencies were based on the government's nine English regions, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, creating a total of 12 constituencies. The Treaty of Nice fixed the number of MEPs for the whole European Parliament at 736; as a consequence of the accession of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007, the number of seats allocated to the United Kingdom was reduced from 78 to 72. If the Lisbon Treaty had entered into force by June 2009 this figure would have been 73. On 31 July 2007, in line with the required reduction in representation from the United Kingdom the number of members elected from each region was modified by the Boundary Commission and Electoral Commission, based on the size of the electorate in each region. The recommended changes were approved by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 2008.[8]

Changes in regional seat allocations[9]

Constituency Representation
in 2004		 Representation
in 2009		 Net Gain/Loss
East Midlands 6 5 -1
East of England 7 7 0
London 9 8 -1
North East England 3 3 0
North West England 9 8 -1
Northern Ireland 3 3 0
Scotland 7 6 -1
South East England 10 10 0
South West England1 7 6 -1
Wales 4 4 0
West Midlands 7 6 -1
Yorkshire and the Humber 6 6 0
Overall 78 72 -6

1Includes Gibraltar, the only British overseas territory which is part of the EU.

MEPs retiring

Conservative

Labour

UKIP

Liberal Democrat

Independents

  • Den Dover (North West England) – Former Conservative MEP, expelled over his expenses.
  • Robert Kilroy-Silk (East Midlands) – Former UKIP MEP, created new party Veritas.[10]
  • Ashley Mote (South East England) – Former UKIP MEP, expelled for expenses fraud for which he was later jailed.[11]
  • Tom Wise (East of England) – Former UKIP MEP, expelled for expenses fraud for which he was later jailed.[12]

Opinion polls

In the run up to the election, several polling organisations carried out public opinion polling in regards to voting intentions in Great Britain. Results of such polls are displayed below.

ComRes, ICM, Populus and YouGov are members of the British Polling Council, and abide by its disclosure rules. BPIX is not a member of the BPC, and does not publish detailed methodology and findings.

Summary of the polling for the United Kingdom's portion of the European elections 2009[13]

Date(s)
conducted		 Polling organisation/client Cons Lab UKIP Lib Dem Others first party lead
4 June 2009 European Parliament Election Result, 2009 (United Kingdom) 27.7% 15.7% 16.5% 13.7% 26.4% 11.2% over UKIP
03/06/09 YouGov/Daily Telegraph 26% 16% 18% 15% 25% 8% over UKIP
31/05/09 ComRes/Green Party
of England and Wales		 24% 22% 17% 14% 24% 2% over Lab
29/05/09 YouGov/Daily Telegraph 27% 17% 16% 15% 26% 10% over Lab
28/05/09 ICM/Sunday Telegraph 29% 17% 10% 20% 24% 9% over LD
28/05/09 Populus/Times 30% 16% 19% 12% 22% 11% over UKIP
21/05/09 ICM/Guardian 30% 24% 10% 18% 17% 6% over Lab
16/05/09 YouGov/Daily Telegraph 28% 22% 15% 17% 17% 6% over Lab
16/05/09 BPIX/Mail on Sunday 30% 17% 17% 15% 5% 13% over Lab & UKIP
14/05/09 ComRes/UKIP 28% 23% 15% 14% 20% 5% over Lab
14/05/09 YouGov/Sun 29% 20% 15% 19% 14% 9% over Lab
10/05/09 Populus/Times 34% 25% 6% 20% 14% 9% over Lab
09/05/09 BPIX/Mail on Sunday[13] 36% 23% 10% 16% 15% 13% over Lab
08/05/09 YouGov/Sunday Times 36% 25% 7% 20% 13% 11% over Lab
04/05/09 ICM/TPA 32% 28% 9% 22% 8% 4% over Lab
08/01/09 YouGov/TPA 35% 29% 7% 15% 15% 6% over Lab
10 June 2004 European Parliament Election Result, 2004 (United Kingdom) 26.7% 22.6% 16.1% 14.9% 19.7% 4.1% over Lab

Results

Great Britain

Map showing most popular party by counting area (in Great Britain).

Turnout In Great Britain was 34.3%, with 15,137,202 votes out of a toal electorate of 44,171,778.[7] Most of the results of the election were announced on Sunday 7 June, after similar elections were held in the other 26 member states of the European Union. Scotland declared its result on Monday 8 June, as counting in the Western Isles was delayed due to observance of the Sabbath.

Great Britain kept to the European wide trend towards the right.[3] The Labour Party, which was in its twelfth year as government of the United Kingdom, suffered a significant drop in support polling third, and UKIP finishing second in a major election for the first time in its history, coming level with Labour in terms of seats but ahead of them in terms of votes. This was the first time in British electoral history that a party in government had been out polled in a national election by a party with no representation in the House of Commons.

The Conservatives won in every region in Great Britain except the North East, where Labour won, and Scotland, where the SNP won.[7] Labour suffered most notably in Cornwall, where it came sixth behind Mebyon Kernow, and in the wider South West region and South East where it polled fifth behind the Green Party.[14] The BNP won two seats, their first ever in a national election. The share of the vote achieved by the English Democrats doubled.[15] The Conservatives

The turnout in Scotland was the lowest in the United Kingdom at 28.8%, with 1,104,512 votes out of a total electorate of 3,872,975.[7] In Scotland it was the first time the SNP won the largest share of the European election vote.[16] The SNP share of the vote rose by 9.4% points compared to 2004, this was the biggest positive swing for any party in any region in Great Britain.[7]

In Wales it was the first time since 1918 that Labour had failed to come first in a Welsh election, dropping 12.2%. In Wales, the Conservative Party topped the poll with the nationalist Plaid Cymru coming a close third. UKIP took the fourth Welsh seat, the first time Wales had elected a UKIP MEP.[17] Both the Liberal Democrat and the Green Party polled their lowest regional shares in Wales, though Wales was the only region where the Liberal Democrat share of the vote rose compared with 2004.[7]

Summary of the election results for Great Britain[18]

Party Votes Vote %  %
Change		 Seats Seats
Change		 Relative Seats
Change		 Seats %
Conservative 4,198,394 27.9% +1.0 25 -2 +1 37.7
UKIP 2,498,226 16.6% +0.3 13 +1 +1 18.8
Labour 2,381,760 15.8% -6.9 13 -6 -5 18.8
Liberal Democrat 2,080,613 13.8% -1.2 11 -1 +1 15.9
Green 1,223,303 8.1% +2.4 2 0 0 2.9
BNP 943,598 6.3% +1.3 2 +2 +2 2.9
SNP 321,007 2.1% +0.7 2 0 0 2.9
Plaid Cymru 126,702 0.8% -0.1 1 0 0 1.4
English Democrats 279,801 1.9% +1.1 0 0 0 0
Christian/Christian
People's Alliance1		 249,493 1.7% +1.6 0 0 0 0
Socialist Labour 173,115 1.1% +1.1 0 0 0 0
NO2EU 153,236 1.0% +1.0 0 0 0 0
Scottish Green 80,442 0.5% 0.0 0 0 0 0
Jury Team 78,569 0.5% +0.5 0 0 0 0
UK First 74,007 0.5% +0.5 0 0 0 0
Libertas 73,544 0.5% +0.5 0 0 0 0
Jan Jananayagam
(Independent)		 50,014 0.3% +0.3 0 0 0 0
Pensioners 37,785 0.2% +0.2 0 0 0 0
Mebyon Kernow 14,922 0.1% +0.1 0 0 0 0
Animals Count 13,201 0.1% +0.1 0 0 0 0
Scottish Socialist 10,404 0.1% -0.3 0 0 0 0
Duncan Robertson
(Independent)		 10,189 0.1% +0.1 0 0 0 0
Total 15,072,325 69 -6 0 100

All parties with over 10,000 votes listed.
1Joint ticket, ran in England as: The Christian Party - Christian Peoples Alliance.

Gibraltar

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Main article: European Parliament election, 2009 (Gibraltar)

Gibraltar is a British overseas territory (BOT) and therefore is under the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the United Kingdom but does not form part of it.[19] Gibraltar is however, part of the EU, the only BOT to be so, and participated as part of the South West England constituency.

Turnout was 35% in Gibraltar, below the 39% for the South West England electoral region as a whole and significantly lower than the turnout in Gibraltar in 2004.[20]

The Conservatives won with 51.93% of the votes. Labour narrowly retained second place achieving 18.53% to the Liberal Democrats' 17.71%.[20]

Northern Ireland

It was the DUP's worst ever European election result: the party had previously topped the poll in every European election in Northern Ireland since the first one in 1979.[6] It was also the first time an Irish Republican topped the poll with Bairbre de Brun of Sinn Féin coming first with 125,000 votes. The share of the votes for most parties in Northern Ireland remained essentially unchanged, the main exceptions were the DUP where their share of the vote fell by 13.8%, and the TUV, a party created by former DUP MEP Jim Allister whose share of the vote rose 13.7%.[7] The DUP's decreased vote share was largely blamed on the TUV splitting the vote.

Summary of the election results for Northern Ireland[21]

Party Candidate Seats Loss/Gain First Preference Votes
Number  % of vote
Sinn Féin Bairbre de Brún 1 0 126,184 25.8
DUP Diane Dodds 1 0 88,346 18.1
UCU-NF Jim Nicholson 1 0 82,892 17.0
SDLP Alban Maginness 0 0 78,489 16.1
TUV Jim Allister 0 0 66,197 13.5
Alliance Ian Parsley 0 0 26,699 5.5
Green (NI) Steven Agnew 0 0 15,764 3.2
Turnout[22] 488,891 42.8

Incumbents defeated

Labour

Traditional Unionist Voice

Aftermath

Gordon Brown faced calls for him to resign as Prime Minister after Labour's defeat.[14]

During the 2005 Conservative Party leadership election David Cameron argued for withdrawal of the Conservatives from EPP-ED and the formation of a new group. After the European election it was announced that the Conservatives were leaving the EPP-ED and forming a new group the European Conservatives and Reformists.[24] On 22 June 2009, the first official list of the new group's members was released.[25] On 24 June, the group held its inaugural meeting, in which Conservative MEP Timothy Kirkhope was named interim leader.[26] The first election for the group leadership was also scheduled for 14 July, pitting interim leader Kirkhope against fellow Briton Geoffrey Van Orden.[27] However, both Conservative leadership candidates were forced to forfeit the leadership in order to prevent it from falling apart, when then-Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott defied his party whip and stood for one of the vice-presidency posts despite pledges the previous week that Polish MEP Michal Kaminski would be backed for it. Kaminski's bid for Vice-President of the European Parliament subsequently failed, and the Poles threatened to abandon the new caucus unless Kaminski was made the group leader in the parliament.[28]

Similarly, UKIP helped found a new European Parliament Group: Europe of Freedom and Democracy after the other parties in UKIP's pre-election European parliamentary grouping, Independence/Democracy had polled badly.[29]

Summary of the post-election European Parliament Groupings of each party

EP Group MEPs UK Party MEPs
European Conservatives and Reformists 26 Conservative 25
Conservatives and Unionists 1
Europe of Freedom and Democracy 13 UKIP 13
Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats 13 Labour 13
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe 11 Liberal Democrats 11
The Greens–European Free Alliance 5 Green Party of England and Wales 2
Scottish National Party 2
Plaid Cymru 1
European United Left-Nordic Green Left 1 Sinn Féin 1
Non-Inscrits 3 British National Party 2
Democratic Unionist 1

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ "Kilroy-Silk to leave European Parliament", This Is Nottingham
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/5gsWfOmKo)
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ The 14 Territories
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/5hNJUnxxO)
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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